August 2012

August 27, 2012

My heart goes out to Alpha Daughter: her daughter is in tears. There's one more week before school starts and my granddaughter just learned that she has to go to camp that week. Dad's work is starting up again; so is Mom's. After a long vacation, it's back to the real world. But now my granddaughter is sobbing in the back seat of the car and my daughter is wrestling with her real-world obligations and that awful feeling that her career is forcing her daughter to do something she does not want to do.

Now my daughter is offering her daughter some "sweeteners"--something to make the mandate easier to bear. She could pick her up early; they could Skype us every night. My granddaughter isn't buying any of it. For now, she's inconsolable.

And so am I. How I wish we weren't heading for the airport, that I lived nearby and could fill in. The lousy feeling travels up and down the generations. At least the female generations. It's a terrible guilt trip, and we've all been on it. Women having it all? There's a price to pay for every little bit you get. As Anne-Marie Slaughter put it in her article in the Atlantic, Why Women Still Can't Have It All,

"The women who have managed to be both mothers and top professionals are superhuman, rich, or self-employed."

At the airport, Paterfamilias hugs his granddaughter goodbye and tells her that her mom needs her help and she should do what she has to do to make things easier for her mom. I can't bring myself to say anything such thing--though "easier" is what I wish for my daughter. That and a painless way to cut herself in half.

August 23, 2012

Cathy and Ben had to make a key financial decision: how much of his paycheck was he going to apportion to his 401k. Ben had been unemployed for five months, and now had a new job that would be paying him less--by about 30 percent--than his old job. How much could they put into a retirement savings account and still have enough cash to pay the their monthly bills? So when Cathy brought up the subject of the 401k while Ben was watching a baseball game with his 21-year-old son, Ben balked. "I don't want to talk about it now," he told Cathy. When she persisted, he was franker: "I don't want to talk about in front of [my son]."

"This is one of problems between me and Ben," Cathy says. "He's uncomfortable talking to his kids about family money. I think they should know. I don't see why it should be a secret."

This reluctance to discuss family money matters has been going on since Cathy and Ben's son and daughter reached young adulthood. When they were college bound, Cathy wanted to level with them about what she expected them to contribute to college costs. Ben said nothing, preferring to pick up the whole tab. A few months ago, with one child out of college and the other in his senior year, Ben lost his job. Cathy was frank with the kids: You can no longer expect any financial help from us. Ben once again evaded the issue. He didn't want his children to feel the weight of his job loss. Costs for his kids were the last thing he would trim from his budget.

Cathy sees her tell-it-like-it-is attitude as part of her midwestern heritage. She grew up in a small city at the edge of farm country. Where she comes from, she says, people were frank about everything, including money. Ben grew up in a sizeable city. His father supported the family of four boys in a style that was more than comfortable. Ben's dad never discussed finances with or around his children, and Ben is carrying on the family tradition.

He's not alone. Martin Kurtz, former president of the Financial Planning Association, says most families have trouble talking about money. "There's no way to talk about it and not have emotion involved," he says. "It reflects our personal belief system." And when young adults on the cusp of independence are involved, it's even harder to sit down and chat about family finances. "When your child is heading toward become independent, you're transitioning from the end of one thing and the beginning of another," he says. "It's difficult because parents don’t want to give up control around money."

On the question of the 401k, business was as usual in the Cathy-Ben household. Their son left the room so Cathy and Ben could make a decision. But as soon as Ben left town the next day on a business trip, Cathy talked to her son about the issue. "He--and his sister--should be more familiar with how our finances work. By hearing us talk about it, he'd have a better idea how to set up his finances when he starts a family."

Sounds like a no-brainer, but not many of us are comfortable doing it. And those of us like Cathy who are usually end up having to do it alone.

August 20, 2012

Lots of us do it--we rent a big vacation house with lots of bedrooms and access to entertaining things to do and we fill it with our grown children and their families or significant others or important friends.

The idea is always the same: to relax and enjoy down time with our nearest and dearest. For those of us whose grown children live further away than a quick visit any day of the week, the week or two away together is a special time to reconnect.

Always sounds better than it works out. Sibling rivalry has an ugly way of breaking out; the young cousins don't get along or leave one of their own out. Or siblings reconnect and you feel left out or irrelevant. And then there's the question of who's paying the bill. And how does that affect who gets the master bedroom suite.

NextAvenue, the new PBS website for those over 50, had a recent piece it dubbed, "How to Share a Vacation Villa and Remain Friends." If you don't want to read the original piece, here are highlights of questions the author suggests you ask before you book a shared holiday home with friends or family. I've culled or rewritten them for relevancy to sharing a vacation retreat with grown children.

Talk about cleaning. Even in paradise, there are dishes to be washed, laundry to be done, beds to be made and floors to be swept.

Determine in advance how to split rental fees. Two couples in two master suites can easily halve the cost. But if one set of grown kids takes two smaller bedrooms for himself and his kids; the other shares a big one with his baby and you take a third but teeny tiny room, it becomes a math problem: How much should each family pay?

Establish how you’ll share food and liquor costs. If one family wants interesting, sophisticated food but you and your other grown child prefer spaghetti and meatballs, will you grouse at splitting the food bills evenly? Likewise, if one son drinks just one glass of wine a night but your daughters have 5 p.m. cocktails every evening followed by a bottle of wine with dinner, how do you divide up the liquor bill? Beyond those costs, you need to divvy up responsibilities of food shopping and preparation.

Discuss your vacation rhythms. Do some of you get up 7 a.m. and head to the beach or do all of you envision sleeping in and enjoy a late brunch before bringing out the beach towels or going sightseeing? Differences in this department are a recipe for holiday disaster, unless you agree beforehand that you'll be going your own way.

Consider how to share a rental car. If everyone had to fly to the location, you and your grown kids are never going to want to go everywhere together and at the same time. [see above] Think about sharing the car for one or two days of a week’s stay and then apportion the remainder of time. To eliminate problems, you might want to rent more than one car.

August 16, 2012

"Go long, buddy, go long." That's my grown son talking to his son. They are throwing a football back and forth on the solid ground of the dead end street that fronts their house. Long, wide, down the middle--dad and his buddy are giving that football and themselves a workout.

"Keep your eye on the ball, buddy." That's my son again. This time he's advising his son on hitting a baseball with a bat. It's an art and a science but "buddy" has to watch the ball closely.

"Shoot, buddy, shoot." "Look for the pass, buddy." "Get back, buddy." This time we're at a soccer game and it's not my son shouting to his buddy. It's all the dads. They are offering free coaching advice to their sons who are on the soccer pitch and trying to score or defend against a goal or just be a factor in the game. The calls for buddy to do this and buddy to do that are a cacophonous backdrop. In a way, it's a positive--the buddies can't tell if it's their father is yelling to them or someone else's dad is yelling to a teammate. So they can just concentrate on the coach and the game--or not. There are some daisy-pickers out there.

When did it come to all this buddy-calling? Hang around a soccer game and you're unlikely to hear a dad call to a Mike or Bill or Frank or even to use some home grown nickname, like "slugger."

Is all this "buddy" talk an attempt by our grown children to buddy-up to their children. Be their pals. Should we shout "buddy" when we go to a game? Quick answer: No! We should not shout anything. Not even ''yay, buddy." We are not our grandchildren's pals. That's our grownchildren's job.

One theory behind all this buddy calling comes from psychologist Michele Borba, who was quoted recently in the New York Times, on the topic.Her point: “The gist of Buddy Parenting is the parent’s goal is to be more of a pal than really the parent, the monitor, the overseer. It becomes toxic when you start placing popularity with your kid above establishing limits or saying no.”

We've seen none of that toxicity in our son's household. Limits are firmly set. But we do see gender discrimination. At his daughter's soccer games, neither our son nor any of the other dads or moms give a shout out to buddies--though our son has been heard to call out some coaching encouragement to his daughter. "Good kick, Angel." "Nice hustle, Angel." But he is a loner. Girls aren't buddies to their moms and dads and apparently they aren't angels either. At least not yet.

August 13, 2012

You never know where that special bond with a grandchild is going to come from. Paterfamilias has long had a special relationship with his grandson, who's now 11. When we go visit our son and his family or they come visit us, PF and grandson kick the soccer ball, throw basketballs through hoops, have a catch with a baseball. And then there are the touch football games at Thanksgiving: women, and more particularly grammies, are not specifically excluded but they aren't exactly welcome either.

This year, when our families were vacationing together in Vermont, we were blessed with a rainy Monday morning. I say blessed because PF had come back from his morning coffee run with the New York Times. After he and grandson poured over baseball stats and soccer results, I opened the paper to the crossword puzzle and asked my grandson for help with a clue--the name of some baseball player who had won some obscure award years ago. Of course, he knew it right off the bat. Nothing baseball is obscure to an 11-year-old. So he sat down and wrote the answer in the appropriate boxes. While he scanned the other clues for another answer he would know, I suggested he hold back. "Let's work around the answer we've got," I said. And so it went, we worked away at the crossword puzzle--the Monday Times crossword being the easiest of the week. We used my laptop to look up the names of Greek mythology figures and the like--this was, after all, a learning experience. We noodled over the many ways we could interpret different word clues. Reader, he finished it. Tuesday, I warned him, would be tougher. And it was, but between the Internet and occasional input from other adults, we completed that one, too.

We didn't have time for the Wednesday, the progressively more difficult puzzle--our son and family were heading home--but I promised I would save it. We were staying in Vermont another week but would be overnighting at his house on our way home. I would bring it with me and we could do it together then.

And so it was that we sat at his kitchen table and worked at the Wednesday puzzle with our usual tools. It took a while but we finished all but one little square. We were very pleased with ourselves. We may never crack a Saturday puzzle--it's only for the crossword Super Gods--but we now have our New York Times moments to look forward to. It's not soccer, but it is a special game we do together. Bring on Thursday puzzles. I now have a partner.

August 09, 2012

The invitation was a gift in itself. Pam and Dan's son invited them to join him and his family on a trip of a life time: He and his wife, their two children [ages 8 and 11] and the other grannie [who was also the full time nanny] were heading to South Africa for a late-summer safari. They were all keyed up to see big cats, elephants, zebras and gazelles in the wild.

For Pam and Dan, here was a chance to spend quality time with a son who lives in another city, to get to know the two Grands in a way that distance and weekend visits preclude and to share in the young family's wonder should a lion or rhino or a herd of zebras be spotted lumbering across the savannah. A chance of a lifetime on a whole different level.

When they weighed whether to say yes or no, Pam and Dan chose not to go. Little things figured in their equation. The 24-hours it would take to get there was less than appetizing. A safari had never been on either their short or long list of trips they wanted to take. Pam doesn't like hot weather and Africa in August was bound to be too hot for her. Dan had signed up for a doubles tennis tournament--his partner would be understanding but disappointed. And Dan would be disappointed, too.

But there were bigger issues as well. The Nanny Granny was going along. She was intimate with the day-to-day discipline and management of the Grands. Would Pam and Dan end up feeling like outsiders at their own family's vacation? It's not a frivolous question.

There's also this: When I joined Uber Son and his family for a short week in Amsterdam this winter, it was a thrilling trip--watching my Grands' wonder as we cruised the canals, visited the Van Gogh museum, tasted pannekoeken, saw the canal-lining houses where 17th century Dutch burghers lived and imported goods from all around the world that were hauled into and stored in their attics. But one of the keys to my personal enjoyment was that I stayed in a hotel half a mile away from my son's. I could take time out to rest or to sightsee on my own. That was part of the magic.

A safari is a different animal--it's everyone doing everything together, unless you opt out and stay in camp rather than go on the guided jeep ride through the park. There is the additional strain in being in an unfamiliar--even dangerous--world where it's difficult to venture out on your own. [A friend who went on a safari with her grown son, says she had to warn him not to take late-night walks by himself. To the animals in the preserve, she warned him, he was "meat on the hoof."]

And then there's the cost. Safaris don't come cheap. Nor does the airfare to South Africa. Although they feel a touch guilty about turning their son down, in the end Pam and Dan didn't see why they should pay a small fortune--upwards of $5,000 a piece--to see animals in the wild when animals in a zoo sate their animal-viewing appetite.

They're going to Provence instead. On their own. Viva la France, says Pam. She'd be happy to take her Grands there any time.

August 06, 2012

I've been trying to get my mind around this for a while: How do we adjust to the time and ways in which our adult children--or even younger grandchildren--spend time on multiscreens and in the digital world. Some of us are old enough to remember being concerned about our children spending too much time watching television. Now we're having an even harder time coming to terms with all the hours our grown children and their children spend on iPads, smart phones, computers, game players and electronic platforms I don't even know about. TV? They watch any show they want via YouTube or Hulu and on any device at hand--anywhere they are, anytime they want. Even if it's at your kitchen table while they are ostensibly visiting you.

Setting limits for our grown children, especially young adults still living in our homes, is hard enough. Standing by while our grandchildren twitch their thumbs over mini keyboards and stay in touch with friends when they are with us, is frustrating--even though they're just doing what come naturally. It's not personal. But it's annoying.

In a recent post on Pyschology Today, psychologist Carl Pickhardt, who writes about parenting adolescent children, picks up on the concerns he hears about the amount of time spent with and on an electronic screen--playing video games, social networking, texting, watching DVDs.

Pickhardt's perspective for parents of adolescents applies to those of us with older children and younger grandchildren. He writes that it's hard for him to tell "if the increasing amount of leisure screen time adolescents put in each week is an emerging problem or simply a social and cultural adjustment to major technological change that is here to stay. Certainly the electronic screen is a vast platform or window or stage on which young people can act out a wide variety of roles – as audience, as spectator, as creator, as player, as communicator, as networker, as shopper, as trader, as researcher, as searcher, as performer, as student, as helper, as teacher, as entertainer, to name a few. The possibilities are mind boggling. The electronic screen is now a means to so many ends."

The real concern, as he points out, is whether the electronic screen is used "more for escape from than engaging with real life experiences and responsibilities and developing real life skills," and whether "solitary screen time discourages social contact and growth, when online activity consumes more life time than offline activity."

With our adult children--especially young adults still living at home or dependent on us--we can set rules about personal interaction: Screens off at the dinner table or when we're discussing something important. With our grandchildren, it's trickier. Rules of the road are set by the parents and we can come off as interfering know-nothings if we try to change the rules when they're around us.

It's complicated. One more adjustment to a brave new world where our old rules of engagement don't apply. I'll be following up on this issue--looking for what the experts are saying about how to deal with social media etiquette and extended screen time. Stay tuned. Or at least, keep your smart phone and iPad charged up and on.

August 02, 2012

Two years ago, I posted a blog about a runaway grandpa. It was a tale of family woe: In his 75th year--and 50th year of marriage--a retired, New England professor ran off to California to live with a woman he'd been wooing for a year. Not only did his wife feel abandoned, so did the grown children, both of whom were married with children of their own, who wondered how their pop-pop had disappeared. Both grown children decided to shut their father out of their lives--they refused to open his emails or answer his phone calls.

Now he's back. His wife has been more forgiving and welcoming than his children. But at least one grandchild has risen to the challenge of re-knitting the family back together again. The 9-year-old, who lives in Texas with his parents, was celebrating his birthday when Pop-Pop and Grannie came to visit--the first visit since pop-pop's return to the family. Although the daughter remained cool, the grandson set set out his druthers for celebrating his birthday--lunch at the tiny restaurant at the tiny airport near his home. And so they went. From their seat, they could see small planes land, gas up and fly out. "He knew," says the grannie of her grandson, "that his pop-pop loves airplanes and this was his way of making his grandfather feel welcome." It helped cut the ice since there were lots of old airplanes to watch and talk about--which, at the time, beat trying to talk around more pressing family issues.

Things have gone less well with the son who lives in the same city as pop-pop and grannie. The son is still angry at his father. He has told his mother not to call his house. "He told me it was because he might pick it up and it might be his dad and he's not going to talk to him right now," the grannie reports. The reason notwithstanding, it has hurt her feelings "to have a son say 'Don't call me.' It cuts me off from my grandchildren."

Feelings of betrayal and anger run deep. We may think--worry, fret, be annoyed--that we're no longer the central players in of our family's life. Our grown children are. And with a sentence--"don't call me"--they can push us to the farthest edges of the periphery. Our actions may not be central, but they still pack a punch. And not necessarily in a good way.